3Dstrike2MAX: Work in Progress Part 1 (CA2@2P2a)

Work In Progress Part 1........... 20/10/2012
Computer Application 2 Project 2a--- External Housing Views

What to Say........Oh well, This assignment is a combination of two program, The AutoCAD and 3DMax itself. AutoCAD is mainly used to draw the Plan of the House while the 3Dmax is to made the house into 3D.
The House/Building I choose is actually my previous Semester Final Project.

The AutoCAD and the begining

For the first part drawing the plan is easy. Just overlay the hand-drawn plan in AutoCAD and trace it out and layer each part according to height and function specification. However When first trial with it, the effect come out quite sastifactory due to the fact that 3DMax read these line as just lines/spline. This mean even layering it will cause more problem than it is worth it. The Best example is the columns i extruded is just planes with hole in the middle.

After consulting with friends and finding online for solution, I decided to went back into AutoCad and this time converted all the box/column, Wall and other's line into polyline with polyedit function.

PolyEdit (PE) > one line.enter > Join > select other line.enter > Done

After that bothersome modification, when I try 3Dmax it again, this time it is more easier todo and it come up as solid instead a hollow boxes.

AutoCAD drawing

First trial extruding failed

However when render, it still appear as box without the top.

3DMax and the 1st Part of the Journey

As mention above, finish solving that small part of the problem Things start to progress smoothly.

and by smoothly mean to Smooth for what disaster that was waiting around the next corner.

Anyway, the Basic way of makig this House into 3D is by extruding the box created from AutoCad. Since it is all layer, those with the same height was quickly extrude into the specific height with no worry:

convert the things you selected into Editable Mesh > Swith to Element/Polygon > Highlight/select the part you want > next to the Extrude button type in the height.

For other special case, like the one above, it is first extrude to the height you wanted then switch back to Edit Mesh and choose Mesh/Points?. There I modified the wall length and the add in another box in to made up the slope part. After that I just Attach and Weld both wall together for easy modification later on (if needed)

Another element I noticed when transport AutoCAD into 3DMax and extrude it is that the extruded part come out as black on the working screen. Hence I just simply Add in Material (Color) to temporary assit me in visual while working on building the 3D.

Black on Working screen but can be seen in different Color when Test Render it.

Small Columns that I had missed or All in different height I just create it with Box and Edit Mesh to modified it to each specific location and height.

Black part on the plan drawing actually is plan created when AutoCad was imported into 3DMax due to the PolyEdit Function I used.

I find it convinient and systemmatic to just move every piece of specific Planes created to down away from the in-progress modelling as this help in making sure I will not miss up any and accidentally extrude the wrong one (due to its black color and complicated Plan drawing and Layer)

Work in Progress. selecting and extruding the wall.

Due to the fact that PolyEdit Can made plan object on AutoCAD into Planes, This save time in making Floor as i just as usual extrude it.

Floor

Another thing to note is that Extrude is not all the omnipotent command as it left the bottom part of the Extrution to be empty and hollow buy HEY no everyone will specifically check out the bottom, Will THEY?